Norton eases road claims

In a parting gesture last month, outgoing Interior
Secretary Gale Norton opened the door for counties and states to
claim control of roads crossing federal lands managed by her
department.

Revised Statute 2477, enacted in 1866,
allowed states and counties to construct highways across public
land (HCN, 12/20/04: The
road to nowhere). Although the act was
repealed in 1976, its right-of-way provisions still apply to roads
created before then. The statute is controversial; counties see it
as a way to manage local access, while conservationists fear an
ever-expanding network of roads. In 1997, then-Secretary of
Interior Bruce Babbitt ordered his agencies not to consider RS-2477
claims.

Norton’s order, based on a 10th Circuit
Court of Appeals ruling from last year, reopens the RS-2477
process, and says that state laws, rather than federal, should be
used to assess the validity of claims. The new guidelines, says
Kristen Brengel of The Wilderness Society, are tantamount to
"surrendering management of roads and routes within these units to
local governments."

The order also says that trails that
were not historically open to vehicles can still be considered
"highways." That flexibility has environmentalists worried that
some counties will convert cow paths into motorized routes.

But for county governments around the West, the order
could end years of frustration by allowing them to conduct routine
maintenance on existing roads. "We like it," says Paul Sunderland,
attorney for San Juan County, Colo., and a longtime county-rights
advocate, "and I doubt seriously that it represents the roading of
the entire West."